Anyone that knows anything realizes that the long term growth of the NHL is going to be linked to its participation in America. I'm all for adding a few more teams in Canada, but there's a ceiling here. There just isn't the population. The real potential is in American NHL growth. If you withdraw teams from south of the border, all you're going to do is relegate hockey as a niche sport, instead of one of the 4 major North American sports.

Hockey is a niche sport and will remain that way. The U.S. market in terms of hockey interest is pretty much tapped out as it is. All else being equal, the league would be better off long-term by trying to satisfy the insatiable Canadian appetite for the game, rather than hoping to create a market where none exists.

Just to help you out...we already discussed this last year. The American markets still provide the bulk of NHL revenue and has a much larger potential market (gate & cable television). Ottawa's revenue is not much better than many other "shitty" teams.

So revenues around double that of the struggling sun belt franchises is "not much better"?

Of course that's not accounting for the money Canadian franchises generate from sponsorship and merch sales (much of which goes into the league's coffers to prop up the U.S. teams in...um.."growing" markets.)

20 per cent of the league accounts for 33 per cent of the revenue. Problem?

Also: the growth potential of the U.S. means nothing if you can't realize it.

It's a lot better than never being able realize such growth in Canada. Clearly revenue has increased because of American expansion, not Canadian legend.

So revenues around double that of the struggling sun belt franchises is "not much better"?

Not for Ottawa...which is just very average.

Of course that's not accounting for the money Canadian franchises generate from sponsorship and merch sales (much of which goes into the league's coffers to prop up the U.S. teams in...um.."growing" markets.)

If you retreat from American markets, all you do is make the NHL the Canadian version of the Swedish elite league, or the Russian KHL. It makes no long term sense.

Relocating failing franchises in places like Phoenix or Carolina is hardly withdrawing from the American market. Maintaining unprofitable teams in places where the game will never be more than a novelty and requiring successful teams to prop them up through revenue sharing is hardly good business.

Maintaining unprofitable teams in places where the game will never be more than a novelty

The longer a team stays in a market, the better chance it becomes more than a novelty and instead part of the city and community. I'm not saying that a couple of US teams shouldn't be relocated. But a reflexive "pull out of the US" mindset is counter productive.

Am I? Seriously,lets go back to the point I countered.....You said....

They have the least population (~700,000) of any NHL city.

I said they dont, Buffalo has less people living in their NHL cityand that is true.

Teams draw fans from a distance, not just the city centre. 1.2 million versus 700,000

However, Winnipeg probably has more hockey fans in that smaller population. Like, WB stated, it probably evens out somehow, or maybe Winnipeg is actually a "bigger market" if you look at just hockey fans. Hard to say without having data....

Teams do draw from a wide range outside the city.

Manitoba is the draw fro the Jets, alongside the people who live in N Ont close to the border.

Winnipeg may have more fans, but the stat that makes more sense is the per capita income of the two.Buffalo 's is $15,000 and Winnipegs is $36,000. Thats a huge disparity and the reason in the past that Buffalo came close to losing the team.

TV rights for local games, concessions, corp boxes,jersey sales.....all adds up to Buff being smaller.

Add to that a woeful commercial base in Buffalo , and in comaprison to Winterpeg not even in the same stratosphere, and you have what anyone would call a very small market, especially if you compare it to Winnipeg,although I imagine Columbus is in tough too. Look at Atlanta, there wss no one at all willing to even look into buying and keeping the Flames. Atl is a huge market but yet, not a single peep was heard.